Even postage stamps come with augmented reality technology nowadays

The Royal Mail is releasing a stamp that will use augmented reality technology from Metaio. As far as we know, it’s the first time AR has been used for something that you lick and stick to letters.

(Okay, we know you don’t lick stamps any more. Bear with us.)

The stamp is part of the new Great British Railways collection. When snapped with an iPhone or Android handset toting Metaio’s Junaio AR app, you’ll be taken through to a video of actor Bernard Cribbins reading WH Auden’s poem The Night Mail.

Admittedly, the crossover between ‘people who are geekily excited about AR’ and ‘people who are geekily excited about stamps, trains and/or Bernard Cribbins’ may not be wide. But it seems the Royal Mail is planning more of these ‘intelligent stamps’ in the future.

“Through intelligent stamp technology, our stamps will open up to a whole new world of information, interest and fun to collectors and the millions of people who will receive them on letters in the coming months alike,” Philip Parker tells the Beeb.